reports about travel out of Egypt

By all accounts, the Cairo Airport is utterly packed today, presumably by the first wave of people going abroad in anticipation of an overly… interesting June 30 coming up. On Twitter I saw someone refer to something like a 200 Euro price for Cairo-Berlin on June 30, but a 687 Euro price for the same flight if you try to take it on June 29.

There is more anger today about long lines at gas stations, and plenty of conspiracy theories about the government causing deliberate shortages to curtail protestors (though as mentioned yesterday, if this is true then it seems supremely foolish as a way of placating the populace).

Some facts to consider:

1. Morsi was elected on June 30 last year. I was willing to give him a chance, especially given that the other candidate in last year’s unfortunate runoff was Ahmed Shafik, Mubarak’s Prime Minister during the latter portion of the Revolution itself. I saw no reason to reward Shafik, though I can understand why some groups (Coptic Christians in particular) would view the Brotherhood as such an existential threat that they might see Shafik as a more palatable alternative. If I’d had a vote last year and you’d held a gun to my head, I probably would have held my nose and voted for Morsi (but would not have been able to sleep soundly that night).

2. During his almost one year in power, Morsi has done a mostly miserable job as President. I was one of those who thought “the Brotherhood is a dubious group that finds it alarmingly easy to tell lies, but at least they have a good track record of managing charity and public relief operations [such as after the 1992 earthquake, when many said they did a better job in meeting people’s needs than the Mubarak government itself].” I now see them as completely incompetent in an administrative sense. They have not been able to evolve quickly enough from a persecuted religious clique into a party of responsible governance.Egypt is a mess right now in terms of daily life, and Morsi must accept responsibility for that.

3. In my eyes, Morsi lost all his legitimacy anyway following his dictatorial self-aggrandizement last November, which included allowing paramilitary Brotherhood thugs to assault and even interrogate captured protestors at the palace.

4. Where does the country go from here? My taxi driver last night actually wanted Mubarak put back in power. This is being said to an increasing degree, but I think it’s utter nonsense both de facto and de jure. Others want Shafik, but not only would this still be very bad, it’s not even clear how it could be done short of a coup that installed him, which would make him more illegitimate a choice than ever.

5. A military coup is an absurd option, though not a 100% impossible one. And under some circumstances, such as open civil war in the streets, it could even be the unavoidable option. But the consequences would be horrible and would set Egypt back by years if not decades.

6. I still think the best option is to play this out democratically, either forcing Morsi out by petition (I don’t fully understand all aspects of the legalities of this) or simply making the voices of opposition clearer than ever on June 30 and looking ahead to the next round of elections.

But the polarization of opinion right now is fairly grim. Many people not only want Morsi out of power on June 30, but are sure that it will happen. Many other people view him as the legitimately elected President, and there are even threats from fringe groups such as Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, which is not only “considered a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union” (which is also true in other, very debatable cases) but is an actual terrorist group with blood not just on its hands, but covering its entire body. I never understood why the general post-Revolution spirit of forgiveness towards previously outlawed groups was extended to this menacing band of killers. If they do take it upon themselves to defend Morsi’s legitimacy with violence, then that’s the most logical path towards the Army becoming involved, and in that case one would have to root for the Army, like it or not (and I wouldn’t like it at all).

At the same time, I don’t imagine Islamist rule going quietly in Egypt. Under the scenario of an Army takeover, I think you’d see years of terrorist activity in the country if not open street combat. To risk an “Orientalist” metaphor, I don’t see that genie going back in the bottle.

If public opinion is to be believed, then there are a great many people alive in Egypt right now who will not be alive one week from now. Let’s hope the water bubbles instead of boiling.